


maybe it's wrong (to love you more each day)

by MiniInfinity



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - After College/University, Alternate Universe - College/University, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-19 04:16:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13115844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiniInfinity/pseuds/MiniInfinity
Summary: A couple of years before Soonyoung graduates university, he meets Seokmin. During the last couple of years before Soonyoung graduates, he learns to fall in love. A couple of years after Soonyoung graduates, he fails to fall out of love.





	maybe it's wrong (to love you more each day)

**Author's Note:**

> i'd like to thank [Adelin](http://soonseok-net.tumblr.com/) for hosting another soonseok fic fest. it really quenches my thirst for more soonseok fics. it's my first time participating in a fic fest in general, so i hope this was okay?  
> but merry christmas eve to those who celebrate and happy soonseok day!

Occasional screeching of chair legs across the floor disrupts squeaks of markers dotting the whiteboard. Soonyoung shakes his head from his stare at the quick hand when he realizes that one of the moving chairs happens to be the one in front of him, plastic backrest barely scraping the edge of his desk. The tall boy greets of a faltering smile, meeting him halfway through reading the formula on the board.

"Hi, is it okay if I sit here?" he asks, and Soonyoung notices the boy's black backpack already settled against the desk leg and a graphing calculator unsheathed from the cover. A pencil points out of his ear and he thinks the boy might have not thought of another place to throw the pencil in that's not his open backpack. Soonyoung still smirks, anyway, at the simple mannerism and preparedness. It's been a while since he last saw someone tuck a mechanical pencil at their ear. The boy glances back at the board and a blue wooden pencil pokes out behind his other ear, almost has Soonyoung sputtering at the sight. "My name is Seokmin and I can't see from the back." He juts his chin towards somewhere behind Soonyoung, perhaps far deep into the classroom, but Soonyoung doesn't turn his head back.

"I'm Soonyoung," manages under slow blinks.

"I guess it doesn't matter if I sit here for the day because the guy that does sit here is recovering from a hangover, and I know that only because he's friends with my roommate, so I suppose the guy here and I are friends but not exactly close." Seokmin squints his eyes, a narrow glide of his eyes left and right without turning his head, as if he's calculating something hanging in the air. "Maybe I didn't have to ask you for permission," before the boy turns back to the front of the classroom.

Today's lecture swims through Soonyoung's ear, drowns in his brain, and paddles right out of his other ear. He only took this one calculus class because he thinks he should, but everything skims in reviews of last quarter. Instead of writing down the notes, he focuses on the slight frowns and scowls from the new acquaintance at the other side of his desk. Later on, instead of blank stares, glances up to the whiteboard and back down to a notebook, pencil frozen between uncertain digits and lips agape with a question hanging from chapped skin, he catches Seokmin tapping his wooden pencil against the desk, flipping back and forth in the textbook, and hesitating to lift his hand past the other pencil still perched at his ear. He can't blame Seokmin, though; math sucks the life out of almost everyone.

One minute before the end of class, Soonyoung barely catches the "Thank you" from Seokmin as he stands up and tosses his pencils in the black hole of his backpack.

\----

Soonyoung takes a seat at a stone table under a cherry blossom tree, wonders if his friends will come out of class on time. He pulls out his phone, scrolls down to the new practices that the team bled sweat for yesterday. It's all precise cuts into space against the black walls, and he feels the humidity of the dance room at his lungs just from watching one member pant, running her hand through her long hair.

"What are you watching?" a voice shocks him back into the bench.

Soonyoung looks up to Seokmin sitting down, dropping his backpack on his lap and hugging it to his chest. It's a gentle action that makes him look smaller than he really is, softer than the sharp curve of his nose and sun-kissed cheeks. "It's for practice," Soonyoung answers as he shuts his phone off to pull out the lunch he made half-conscious in the morning.

"Practice for what?" Seokmin sits up a slight and Soonyoung catches a peek of his collarbone from the gray sweatshirt he's wearing. "Are you in any sports?"

Soonyoung smiles, shakes his head. He wonders what made Seokmin think of a sport when the video doesn't have any other equipment except for the room, the dancers. "I'm actually in the dance club."

He straightens up higher in his spot at the bench. "Oh, you like to dance? I like to sing."

Soonyoung nods, not knowing exactly where this conversation is supposed to go. But his thought leaves his head before his lips can stop him, "Maybe you can sing for me sometime."

"And maybe you can dance to the song I sing."

\----

From behind, it's the first time since they met that Soonyoung watches Seokmin nod his head to the words of their professor, following the swipes of the felt tip across the whiteboard. No textbook flipping, twitches to raise his hand. None of the nervous rhythms of his pencil that drags through the lecture.

So when Seokmin stands up, plops right back on the chair backwards, and leans his cheek onto the backrest, his first words since the lecture started hails down on Soonyoung with confusion, "Hi, I still suck at math."

Soonyoung grins at this; he would have thought Seokmin understood this lesson from the start to finish, down to the decimal point and finishing swish of the alpha symbol. "I'm sorry?"

Seokmin's laugh tips his head back and the warmest sound echoes in the classroom, melts some of the anxiety right off of Soonyoung's hands. "Can we study together?"

 

They borrow one of the study rooms that the library holds off for people looking for a more silent place to procrastinate on optional assignments, a glass door between them and the outside world so that the librarian won't catch them talking about what they shouldn’t be talking about. It's not the best room for talkative people, but he thinks Seokmin would like it better if Soonyoung uses the whiteboard in the room, just like their lectures in class. But Soonyoung forgets to ask for whiteboard markers, so he sticks to pulling his notebook, lecture notes, and graphing calculator out and splaying them over the light wood of the table. At the other side of pale yellow, Seokmin places a green cardboard box before stacking a red one right on top of it.

Soonyoung nudges the Pepero boxes over the table with his pencil. Seokmin catches the boxes at his lap before they can crack on the chair and plants them back on the table. "We can't eat here, Seokmin."

Seokmin frowns and abandons the boxes on the empty chair next to him. They start on the slower side, with Soonyoung recapping the lectures from last week and building up to today's lesson. Soonyoung explains definitions, formulas in soothing decibels and it all shatters at the crack of a snap. Soonyoung's lips pause, his eyebrows furrow, but Seokmin lifts a black stick of Pepero into his mouth.

"It's okay as long as we don't get caught, right?" Seokmin grins before tapping his foot against Soonyoung's and from over the desk, he hears the dry shuffling of pretzel sticks shaking under cardboard. New red marks of circles fill in his previously monochrome notes, and sometimes, Seokmin takes a pink pen and doodles stick figures over the numbers. Soonyoung continues on, anyway, munching on a new stick, until he swallows thickly and slides the notes over to Seokmin's hands.

In the end, Soonyoung lays out a handful of problems for Seokmin. One check of Seokmin's work, a neat array of numbers and smooth arrows from one set of worked out answers to the final answers, the younger's eyes brighten when he corrects them all without a single disparaging cross of  _X_.

Seokmin leans forward into the table and drags his fingers over every word in the problem and over every graphite step he wrote on the page. It's so close that Soonyoung would start counting his eyelashes if Seokmin doesn't sit back, if he pauses the quick flutters of trying to read the paper in front of him. "Are you sure I got these all correct?" lilts low and Soonyoung wonders why Seokmin would even doubt himself.

Soonyoung nods and slips his own paper besides Seokmin's work. "Look, you almost got every step that I took."

Seokmin's mouth drops, eyes darting from his page and back to Soonyoung's answer sheet. "It's  _that_ easy? Why couldn't I get it when the professor was teaching this?"

 

When moonlight greets them at the parking lot, Seokmin pulls out his wallet and skims through bills. Soonyoung shouldn't be staring at Seokmin's driver's license, at the close-lipped smile brighter than the white background, but he doesn't know what Seokmin is thinking that needs money. "How much should I pay you for today?"

Soonyoung blinks three, four times up at the taller. "Pay me?"

Seokmin nods, "Yeah, for tutoring me. I mean, you took your time to teach me and I actually got it."

Soonyoung places his hands out and over Seokmin's wallet, spreads of heat on contact, and lowers the digging fingers between green and red bills. "Don't worry about it."

\----

"Did you forget your lunch?" Soonyoung asks when Seokmin doesn't take anything out from his backpack after residing on the bench. Soonyoung opens his plastic container and drops the lid in front of him. He takes his spoon, slices a bud of rice in half, and places it on the clean side of his lid.

Seokmin starts to wave his hands in the air, tells Soonyoung to stop putting food when a boiled egg, sheets of seaweed, and sausages make their way onto the lid. "I don't bring food to school."

"I do," through a few chews of rice and egg, "'cause the food here is kind of expensive and it doesn't help that I'm always hungry."

Seokmin mumbles a quiet thank you before picking up a set of chopsticks and biting into rice. A quiet hum starts a path over the table and Soonyoung recognizes some of the songs that Seokmin breathes through filled cheeks and into an empty stomach. Melodies are cut off when Seokmin's eyes grace upwards and Soonyoung follows them to his friends slipping to their seats.

Jihoon runs a hand over his face, sighs hard and long, and swings his backpack on the table. Wonwoo carefully places a pile of books and nudges the bridge of his glasses with his pinky.

"Seungcheol is off buying food outside of campus," Jihoon explains, before some hushed comments about forgetting his coffee this morning.

"Who's that?" Wonwoo blurts low as he organizes his books by height and width. Soonyoung recognizes the calculus textbook at the bottom before a couple of thinner classic English and shorter, modern Japanese books pile on.

"Oh, this is Seokmin," Soonyoung starts, before introducing him to the two.

\----

"I guess this is my seat from now on," Soonyoung hears over his textbook, and he looks up to Seokmin taking the seat in front of him.

Soonyoung shrugs, "I don't see why not."

"The guy here doesn't seem to like coming to class anymore." Seokmin hums into another soft song as he turns to face the front of the class. Soonyoung watches the back of his head nod into beat as he pulls out his calculator, a couple of pens, a notebook, and a white paper bag folded three times shut at the top.

He turns back around, plops the bag right onto Soonyoung's notes. "I baked you something because you gave me most of your lunch and you always help me when I can't understand the lectures." Soonyoung doesn't know what to say, but he's never been so thankful for Seokmin continuing on. "I actually don't know what you like, and I thought chocolate and red velvet were safe."

Seokmin's eyes flutter down to Soonyoung's hands opening the bag, apprehensive curls of his fingers from the opening, because did Seokmin really bake these for him? Soonyoung catches Seokmin glance at him before a softer smile starts to form.

He opens the bag and looks inside, perfect little circles of rich red and warm brown piled into the bag. He notices  _Soonyoung_ written in purple ink after unsealing the top of the bag. The writing slants to the right and he smiles at the possibility of Seokmin packing the cookies into the bag and remembering, at the last second, to write Soonyoung's name. Perhaps he was worried that someone else will eat them, or maybe he might forget who these cookies were for.

He doesn't think he deserves these cookies.

He doesn't think he deserves Seokmin at all.

\----

Rain drops by the two, bids a hello to the tight umbrella that Seokmin tries to fit perfectly between him and Soonyoung. But with Seokmin's broader shoulders and Soonyoung's shorter figure, Seokmin hogs the shield of pongee under and even manages to poke one of its metal ends at Soonyoung's ear. Soonyoung rubs the raindrops curving down his earlobe and asks Seokmin if he can hold the handle instead. When Seokmin's feet start mapping towards the parking lot and Soonyoung is about to turn at the opposite direction, to the university's dance room, Seokmin glances back and hurries behind the older.

"Can I walk you there?" diffuses into drums of rain, but Soonyoung catches the pauses in between his words, the hesitation to take another step closer. Seokmin looks down and Soonyoung mentally shakes himself to see the fog of their breaths ghosting into each other. Soonyoung nods only once before, "Can I watch you dance a little? I'll go after five minutes."

He wants to tug onto the sleeve of Seokmin's burgundy rain coat, to tell him that he can stay longer. That five minutes is not enough for the both of them. If he throws his doubts away right now, he would ask Seokmin to dance with him, long after the dance room resounds a single note from anyone and anything.

He silently hopes that Seokmin forgets how to read a clock.

 

There's a flutter in his chest when they enter the dance studio, behind a small bundle of Soonyoung's friends in a circle. He can't discern if it's because it's their first meeting since rainy season started or if it's because Seokmin follows his feet so close that if he stopped, he knows that Seokmin will bump into his shoulder. He drops his bag at the wooden bench near the door, adds onto the tall heap already building up, and glances at Seokmin doing the same with his bag. Soonyoung hollers a hello, waves into the air to no one in particular, and runs over to the group.

He squeezes a peek over heaving shoulders and solid exhales and sets a palm on the closest shoulder his digits can land on. A firm hand on the youngest member, Chan. He catches the brightness of a phone and expects a video of new routines, fresh beads of sweat running down their necks. But his eyes fall on a video of the members chasing each other around in this very dance room. The timestamp at the corner tells him that the camera shot this video just ten minutes ago.

"Hey, guys," Soonyoung calls.

The person right next to him yelps a swear that splits the studio into silence.

"When did you get in here?" strangles from someone's throat.

"I told them to practice," from one member gliding an accusing finger at the rest of the group.

"No, don't worry," and it pains Soonyoung to know that as long as he's somewhere in these four walls and all that stands between him at the walls are the mirrors, a camera, and his members, a degree of fear plants into their minds like a virus. "I brought a friend over to watch. I hope you don't mind." Soonyoung gestures behind them, to Seokmin lifting a hand in a feeble wave, a simple shake of his wrist left and right and letting his digits follow.

"He looks scared," one of them says, and waves Seokmin over.

"Who isn't scared when Soonyoung is here?" earns a playful punch to the shoulder from their choreographer.

Seokmin skitters his steps across the hardwood and unbearably close to Soonyoung. Slow breaths sink over the shell of Soonyoung's ear and it almost splices a shiver down his spine. "Hi," is quiet from Seokmin and Soonyoung can’t help but smile at the shyness.

One girl manages to stutter a, "Wow, he's so handsome."

The bashful smile from Seokmin, an almost double-over from the compliment that catches him defenseless and off-guard, twists something in Soonyoung's chest. The heat in the room makes it hard for him to breathe.

"Thank you," Seokmin mumbles, through his palm over his lips and slender fingers cupping his voice and pink cheeks.

Someone slaps heavy plastic into Soonyoung's palms and the group disperses in front of the mirror. Soonyoung jogs over to the tripod in front of the wall of mirror, presses a couple of buttons to turn it on and focus at the panorama of members stretching one last time--some tying their hairs into ponytails and others jumping at the balls of their feet. Soonyoung hurries back to where Seokmin stands near the door and pulls his sweatshirt over his head, drops it right on his soaked backpack.

Soonyoung flashes a thumb-up to the girl in the back controlling the music and Soonyoung forgets the loose fabric of his tank top trying to cling onto his chest. The heavy hotness of the room weighs into a light breeze against quick, sharp movements of his feet and smooth glides of his arms. He focuses on getting his moves right at first, to getting the rhythm in sync with his body instead of the other way around. The song brings them to their knees, after a row of slow body rolls that sends other spectating members of the club screaming. From the mirror, Soonyoung catches a pair of hands grabbing a fistful of a jacket, shaking the girl into defeat.

From the same mirror, a single shift of his eyes to the right, he watches one long, hard swallow suspended at Seokmin's throat, lips locked agape right after. Soonyoung notices a fiddling of fingers at the hem of his jacket and a pause at the rise and falls of his chest, and the music stops.

At least, that's what Soonyoung thinks.

Bass beats through speakers don't flow right into his ears and surge through his veins, taut fibers of muscles like they did just a few seconds ago. It earns him a few shoves at his shoulders that nearly knocks him to the ground, that rips his gaze from Seokmin.

"As expected of our president," one of them jokes.

"It's okay, it's just the first practice," another assures the group.

"Of the day," sings into the air, and laughter cracks through the entire studio, even one from their leader himself.

 

At the end of it all, when clouds and rain don't give way to any sunlight because the sun doesn't have any rays to offer, Soonyoung calls it a day, another good day of practice. He tells himself that he will buy the group snacks for the next meeting to make up for his slip-up at the start.

He silently makes his way to the front of the studio, where the idle camera still blinks a red light, and covers the lens with his palm. He lifts it up and presses the shutter, turns off the recording altogether. He listens to the members bidding him goodbye and he returns every one of them with a small wave of his hand to the traffic of slipping jackets on, opening umbrellas, picking up bags at the doors.

It's quiet, ears fuzzy of the void of music for three hours straight. Oxygen still tries to trace its way back to his lungs, his breathing thrown off from the abrupt stop of movement. So he lies down, covers his eyes with his snapback.

When oxygen breathes into his own lungs once again, he pulls the cap off his eyes, sets it to the side, and leaves a hand on his chest. He drums his fingertips over his heart and brushes his fringe out of his eyes with his other hand, stares up at the blinding lights. His eyes find the mirror, to Seokmin's lone figure sitting up straight on the bench. His eyes barely blink at Soonyoung.

He shoots up and checks the  _8:22_ on the clock.

Soonyoung stands, takes a moment to let the dance room orient itself and realize that the twin in front of him is his own reflection, and stumbles over to Seokmin. He wonders why Seokmin would stay so long, why he would stay through it all. "You said you'd go after five minutes," Soonyoung recalls Seokmin's promise from hours ago.

"I know," Seokmin whispers, standing up, "but I've never seen you dance before."

"You should be going home," he says, gathering Seokmin's bag and jacket before his own, "it's getting late."

Seokmin smirks and lifts Soonyoung's discarded sweatshirt off the floor, "You should be, too."

They walk to the parking lot, circling around in the sidewalk with Seokmin bumping his bicep into his shoulder under the umbrella. Light taps of rain don't swallow their conversation this time, so Seokmin continues on his previous thought.

"You were, honestly," Seokmin pauses, sighs, and takes a moment for his breath to settle back into to the air, "breathtaking."

Soonyoung's heart nearly falls right out of his chest and he tells himself that  _yes, I heard that right, Seokmin just called me breathtaking_. "Thank you," is such a weak reply, but that's all Soonyoung can say. He never realized how afraid he was about allowing Seokmin watch him dance--would it be weird? Is the choreography they're learning, the choreography he crafted in that very dance studio, something that Seokmin would tell him is breathtaking before turning his back and rambling how awful it really is?

"I wouldn't be surprised if you do become a choreographer later on." Although it's wishful and encouraging, deflating tones of his voice unveils him otherwise. He wonders why, but he doesn't ask.

It takes them a while to actually step into the lot, deciding to count the number of lampposts they pass by because they don't want to leave. Not yet.

\----

Time navigates them to under shelter of the dance studio, just a key's slot away. Seokmin still looks the same after the one-week break in between quarters, and a silver ribbon on his fingertip keeps a red box from reaching puddles on the ground.

"I traveled a little during the break and even though we haven't known each other for long, I got you something," Seokmin nearly spits out and eases the box into Soonyoung's hand.

Soonyoung drops a bigger box on Seokmin's palm, quickly mutters about how his parents suggested on going to Seoul one day during the break. "They say I never leave this dance studio or my room, so they took me to Seoul to look at other dance studios," he reveals, after pulling his hood down to scratch the discomfort at revealing another part of his life to the younger.

Soonyoung pats himself down for the key, to find them at the lanyard in his pants pocket, and opens up the dance studio when he notices Seokmin shivering, teeth clicking, and lips curling up when Soonyoung mentions it. He notices the pink at Seokmin's nose and ears and the trembling of his fingers around the box and nothing beats wanting to tiptoe a slight and planting his palms on the younger's cheeks.

They sit down on the floor, bags leaning against each other like how the two slump into each other's shoulders. Soonyoung sets out a couple bags of chips and bottles of water on the floor, and a thermos of soup for the two of them. Seokmin urges that he uses the cap as a mug because "I haven't used one of these in a while."

Seokmin opens his bag to a plastic container of cookies and Soonyoung nearly gasps when he catches the sight of red velvet. "I figured you like red velvet the most when those were the only ones you ate in class." Soonyoung blushes at that because he didn't even notice himself. When Seokmin starts to shake the box up and down, Seokmin tells him to "not expect much from a broke college student."

"Same with mine." Except Soonyoung believes that he is a liar because where in the world does he get a ceramic mug in the design of a leaf? Nothing like this ever ever crossed his eyes, but the only thing that crosses through his lips is, "I think Totoro would use this as boat if it wasn't so heavy."

Seokmin smirks, and it all disappears when he lifts open the top of the box, to a pile of albums from artists he remembers listening to Seokmin sing and hum before and after lectures.

"Are you rich?" Seokmin almost screams into the studio.

\----

Soonyoung harbors a bent of his paycheck into a gift for Seokmin's birthday. When he drives himself to the streets of Hongdae after his boss checks in his last salary before the younger finally catches up to his own age, he steps down busy streets, fairy lights at the front of all shop windows, exhales smoking over scarves and gloves. What the weather can't color with gray, shops will paint with chromatic twists of fabric and splays of notebooks, stacks of gift boxes to the ceilings and ruffles of tissue paper draping down like curtains.

\----

"It's so cold in the winter time, Seokmin, so please wear these and don't get sick," are Soonyoung's first words when he passes a pale yellow box over to Seokmin. They're back in the dance studio, with only one row of light at the middle casting down the entire floor. Soonyoung spreads his legs out from the pretzel of his limbs, ankles knocking his feet back and forth. Sometimes, the toe of his shoe taps against Seokmin's bent knee.

Seokmin slips the gray beanie over his hair the second he parts white gift tissue and slips on one matching glove. He drapes the black scarf over his hair, not even bothering to wrap it around his neck like its sole purpose never really mattered. "This is perfect for this time of the year," Seokmin smiles as his fingers stretch under warm fabrics. "Thank you, Soonyoung."

"Yeah, it would be even better if you wore both gloves," Soonyoung jokes.

Seokmin shakes his head, grabs Soonyoung's wrist to slip the other glove so easily around his digits. The second Seokmin's hand slips away from his, he misses fading warmth on his wrist, secure hold of his hand for a flash of a second. It takes a while for him to notice Seokmin digging through the box, only to come across the last thing Soonyoung bought.

"This lunch box has a slot for chopsticks," Seokmin gasps, lifting up the stacked lunchboxes to inspect every angle, corner, and strap.

When they step outside, Soonyoung keeps the one glove on, forgets about it completely when Seokmin's fingers fit so easily between his and starts swinging their hands together.

Seokmin holds their hands up to his eyes. "Your hand is actually warmer than the glove. Do you have a heat pack in your sleeve?"

\----

Jihoon punctuates his routine sips of black coffee with song-mutters of a tune, fresh notes at the rim of his paper cup. Voice ethereal like hot tendrils of his drink, it has Wonwoo’s lips pantomiming the song with a choking grip on the fabric over his heart and head floating back as if to collapse off the bench. Seungcheol lipsyncs the wrong lyrics, and it’s an unsung trio for the music. Mingyu skips his hand down from the slice of pizza to Wonwoo’s back, skitters fingertips up on the expanse, and pushes Wonwoo straight up on his seat. It's a half-routine for all of them, to hear an unknown song from Jihoon between classes, to listen to Jihoon asking afterwards if anyone else wants some morning coffee at two in the afternoon.

It all stops when a deeper, smooth voice follows suit, almost as if it was practiced beforehand. Jihoon lowers the coffee from his lips, lets a smile slowly carve as Seokmin continues off the song for him. A rare grin doesn’t end, one where Jihoon understands the point where two voices just get it, with no falter in the rhythm, no trepidation in the next words to be sung, no doubt that one song never sung by these two people before clicks. The table fills with whimsical tones that escape in what they usually find in a serious Jihoon.

He catches Jihoon’s fingertips tapping on the paper cup to the same beat as Seokmin’s head bobbing. No other words pass between the group as the song dies out with liquidized caffeine on the table, abandons the last syllables with a smile on Soonyoung’s face.

\----

"Hey, have you heard about spring festivals?" Seokmin asks as they walk down the hallway. Soonyoung nods, but there's a flood of cities across the country that blooms in spring festivals more than actual spring flowers.

When Soonyoung hesitates a "Yeah," there's a pout in Seokmin's lips and he doesn't know how to get rid of it, but he doesn't think he wants to. It's all jutting bottom lip with an exasperated heave of a breath.

"So...do you want to go with me?"

"Sure," limps so easily from Soonyoung's mouth.

 

Seokmin never mentioned in his plans that it's all the way in Changwon, a four-hour sitting in a bus and train. But he can't complain when Seokmin buys tickets for two window seats, facing each other. Not when they pass through an arch of blooming pinks and whites, a welcoming pale blue behind everything, he can't think of a more perfect moment.

Not when Seokmin leans over closer to the glass of the window and tells Soonyoung to "Look at the flowers!"

Not when Seokmin presses his palms on the cold window and his eyes try to chase down every floating petal that passes by.

Not when Seokmin reaches a hand over the table and taps Soonyoung's hand, urges him to  _look up right now_ , even if the scenery hasn't changed at all.

There's an innocence playing at Seokmin's eyes that hasn't left, even after they step off the train. Off the train, Seokmin's hand slips so easily into Soonyoung's and he thinks that the taller didn't think twice about it. Maybe he never needs to think about it at all.

 

Seokmin gives up his window seat across Soonyoung for a girl who wanted to look out the window, into firefly cities and butterfly streams of clouds. Warmth rushing against Soonyoung's arm as Seokmin takes the seat next to him sends a comforting hold in him.

\----

A felt golden hamster rests in Soonyoung's hands when Seokmin promised that he would drive to Soonyoung to visit him during the summer. A bitten piece of cotton bread hangs from a small sewn paw and he waves the free paw back at Seokmin after thanking him for such an adorable birthday gift.

He freezes up, forgets about the hamster entirely that his fingers nearly let go, when Seokmin's own digits reach to his cheeks to pinch some of hot skin right off.

"It reminded me of you, so I got it," Seokmin beams, "so cute."

Soonyoung wishes that Seokmin can't see the redness from the blood gushing into his cheeks or from the spring heat melting away winter whistles, welcoming in summer rushes.

\----

Soonyoung has no idea who organized it out, but he finds himself in the backseat of Mingyu's car and Wonwoo sticks his hand out of the window from the passenger's seat and taps on the door. They talk somethings about the new rides at the closest amusement park, and that's where he thinks these two are taking him. Wonwoo and Mingyu wouldn't mention anything when they showed up at Soonyoung's doorsteps in shorts and tank tops, a pair of aviators perched at Mingyu's nose, and instructed him to pack some extra clothes, maybe small bottles of shampoo and conditioner while he's at it. They also didn't mention anything about dragging another person along until they're halfway across the city and Mingyu asks for Seokmin's address.

Except when they walk through the entrance, the entire conversations are shot futile because the two are nowhere to be seen after Mingyu excused themselves right when Wonwoo needs to use the restroom. It leaves Seokmin and Soonyoung at the merry-go-round, in front of colorful splashes of a fountain.

"I don't see why Wonwoo needs Mingyu to go to the restroom," Seokmin speculates as they walk through airs of cotton candy strings, stumbles of children's feet as they find rollercoasters faster than their parents, screams of excitement spelling through metal and wooden rides.

"Well, they showed up at my door telling me to pack clothes," Soonyoung admits, a little harshly, because if Wonwoo and Mingyu wanted to invite them over here, why didn't they leave it just like that?

After one ride that Soonyoung deems should be suited more for the children's area, he decides that Seokmin's best friend is actually the ground. A tousled shirt stretched on Soonyoung's skin and dead eyes of Seokmin after stepping off a rollercoaster lead to them to the back of the amusement park instead, towards the swimming pool.

But they don't step into the swimming pool overflowing with siblings chasing for their younger ones to get closer to shore. Not even sparing a glance at the wave pool, where parents lift their toddlers into tubes and let them ride the waves.

They drop their belongings off at a beach chair under a parasol and kick off their shoes. Seokmin crouches down, fixes their shoes under the seat so that the heels and toes of his shoes line up with the heels and toes of Soonyoung's shoes. Something warms in Soonyoung's heart at the quiet, thoughtful gesture.

Seokmin bolts straight up and Soonyoung wonders how he can't get dizzy from that. "Let's go!"

 

Slaps of chlorine-drenched water hit their thighs before the water even reaches their ankles. Soonyoung and Seokmin chase for an unoccupied blue tube floating in the water. After a kind child offers her tube to Soonyoung, they kick off into the water. Soonyoung sits inside the tube, lets everything from his chest-down to float in slow motion. Seokmin, on the other hand, sits on the tube like a hammock, sprinkles some water at his face with flicks of his slender digits.

It's quiet between them; occasional winds from summer air and slices of kids racing through the lazy river keep them from talking. Soonyoung wants to close his eyes and let the sluggish current take him wherever when cracks of water breaks the mute behind him and Seokmin holds his hand out.

"Pull me?" he asks, so softly with a faint of innocence that he would have found in one of the kids around him.

Soonyoung stares at the extended palm at his direction, at Seokmin's flinch of his hand, hesitation to pull back because maybe the older won't actually take it. But Soonyoung slides his palm in his and pulls him through the water, feet finding the bottom of the river easily as the kick in speed sends Seokmin throwing his head back and laughing.

He thinks, at that moment, if he condenses summer into a single sound, it would be Seokmin's laughter. A full, skull-tipping laughter that tugs his heart strings faster than his vocal cords.

In between Seokmin's  _weeee_ and summer heat spreading on them like a blanket, Soonyoung almost lets go because his hands warm up from something other than the weather.

\----

Soonyoung now believes that they are probably the worst people to watch a movie with, but that does not stop them from asking each other if they want to watch the new horror movie on opening day. It doesn't hurt to pass a few whispers, snickering little comments about this character or at the way the lighting emphasizes one painting on the wall, so "it might be significant, right, Seokmin?"

At one point, they're so lost in the hushed conversations over popcorn buckets, where they turn to each other and they're so, so close. Soonyoung can't help but lower his eyes to Seokmin's small smile and notice his heart beating a lot faster, too hard. His throat traps his breath and it's been a while since he felt so peaceful underwater.

A blue-white glow from the theater screen glosses Seokmin's face, but it comforts Soonyoung. Inside and out. Seokmin's eyes disappear into the moons when he giggles at the jolt of Soonyoung's shoulders from the crash of the speakers, vibration throughout the movie house that sends a few other patrons gasping.

Seokmin leans over the armrest and assures him that "You can just look at me when the scary parts come up," before going back to watching the movie.

\----

They don't save seats for each other the next quarter because they don't have any classes where they can ask each other for homework, for the lecture notes, for Soonyoung to clarify concepts for Seokmin. But it doesn't stop Seokmin from dropping by at the dance studio or easily slip into a bench seat next to Soonyoung after their first classes of the quarter.

Seokmin trails Soonyoung into the dance studio and sits back, watches grace take in the form of Soonyoung's eyes fluttering shut at decrescendos into the otherwise empty dance studio, to fluid precision mimicking and taking up the entire mirror, exhales following the same beat as the music.

When Soonyoung locks up the studio, murmurs an apology for always keeping him so late, Seokmin shakes his head, assures him that "It's always been so captivating to watch you dance." It rises a blush into Soonyoung's neck and cheeks, but the firm grip on Seokmin's hand doesn’t agree. Seokmin stops them before they step outside, into the wind, and tugs off the black scarf from his neck. He shies a step in front of Soonyoung, lifts his arms up, and Soonyoung sighs at the newfound heat on his neck.

He starts wrapping the scarf around Soonyoung's neck, mutters how it should be done "with one short part over your shoulder then a long part over the other one, so you can wrap the long part around your neck and it's still pretty even in the end.”

So Soonyoung and Seokmin stand there as the taller fixes the scarf. One inhale and a muted smell of orange fills in. He looks down, at Seokmin's careful fingers nearly brushing his cheeks, at the scarf he bought a year ago.

Soonyoung can't move his eyes away from Seokmin's lips and he feels small, too safe with Seokmin. Seokmin opens up a crack in his heart, melds it back together in one piece by the presence the younger brings.

Seokmin waves Soonyoung off when he checks the time on his phone, and they split off into their next class. Sliding into his first class of the day without Seokmin sitting in front of him weighs lonesome than he has gotten accustomed to.

 

Four minutes.

Only four minutes pass by and he hears a low tumble of Wonwoo's voice besides him. "Why do I smell Seokmin when he's not even here?" Soonyoung glances at Wonwoo from the corner of his eye, watches his friend lean over his desk and into his own. "Hey, isn't that Seokmin's scarf?"

Soonyoung blushes even harder, digs his face deeper into the fabric, and doesn't even notice the deep inhale he takes of oranges. "Yeah, it is."

Wonwoo leans back into his desk with a smirk that he wants to slap right off.

 

They meet each other again at the table.

"I forgot your scarf," is bashful from Soonyoung's mouth, but there's a smile in Seokmin's face and a softness easing into his eyes as he steps close and carefully takes his time to unwind the scarf from Soonyoung's neck.

"Maybe I should get one for you," he suggests, as he loosely slips the scarf around his neck, "a matching one, maybe."

 

Home feels so far away when he lies down on his bed and cries. He doesn't know why the tears won't stop. 

Soonyoung doesn't have another scarf to offer Seokmin, nor any cookies he can bake into perfection. He never follows Seokmin into his class wherever he goes to sing his heart, and he never even caught a single proper note sung from Seokmin's throat. Not a single line that he holds deep in his chest.

He doesn't deserve Seokmin, so why is he spending so much time with him? Why does Seokmin keep talking to him when there's someone better out there?

\----

Soonyoung slaps his hand over his eyes when they settle at a study room in the library. Sheets of papers lay out on the table like playing cards. "I can't believe you forgot about public speaking."

"I know, but there were way better classes to choose from," Seokmin justifies as he lays out his speech in front of Soonyoung.

"Yeah, but as a future social worker, you kind of need to talk a lot," he chuckles. Soonyoung doesn't remember much about his public speaking class, but he sure will never forget the younger asking him to listen to his speech about folding cranes.

"Hey, my counselor suggested me this class." Seokmin rolls his eyes, gray wrinkles across white forming on the page in his hand, when Soonyoung continues to giggle through the fist over his lips. The older exhales a couple of times to steady his breathing, but the entire room shatters out of silence when he holds up a piece of origami paper, trying to ready himself for this demonstrative speech. "Gosh, just listen to my speech and tell me that it's interesting enough that you listened to half of it." Soonyoung shakes his head, but he knows that Seokmin trusts him, anyway.

After taking some time to point out where the younger should actually demonstrate the instructions, he catches Wonwoo at the other side of the glass door. Wonwoo pushes a cart then at his glasses, stepping into and out of aisles to sort books. Or pull them out. Sometimes, Soonyoung wonders if Wonwoo ever made a mistake when it comes to library books because he catches other librarians bringing two carts at a time, while Wonwoo trudges on the entire day with one. He waves at Wonwoo to come over, but his friend shakes his head and points at the front desk. His eyes follow Wonwoo's finger to an old, scowling woman standing up from her seat.

 

They sit at the children's section, even though colorful rugs and slouches of bean bags are reserved for children and their parents. Forty-five minutes before closing, there's not a single pair of short, stumbling legs in this section. None of the slow, smooth enunciation of dialogue or exaggerated details from big texts.

Soonyoung pulls out a random book from the shelf, right besides the bean bag he threw himself on, and mutters, "'Shel Silverstein. The Missing Piece,’" into quiet space. He reads the book in soft whispers as Seokmin sits cross-legged on the playmat and pushes a toy car through the road map on the floor.

_Vrooom._

"'Are you anybody else's missing piece?'"

_Vrooom._

\----

Instead of the library today, Seokmin offers to take Soonyoung to his dorm and have them study there. His roommate, Seungkwan, is out somewhere he was never told, so they "should have the dorm to ourselves until late at night."

Soonyoung says yes, asks him to wait a moment because he'll start grabbing his notebooks and textbooks from his car, but Seokmin follows him out into the parking lot and they start heading to the dorms with Soonyoung's books in Seokmin's hands.

 

A bookshelf stands lonesome at the end of Seokmin's bed, but Soonyoung thinks lonesome is probably the wrong word. With spills and litters of trinkets, books, and picture frames, with so much inside, how does one exactly feel lonely? A hint of sentimentality flushes over the wood--starts with the fresh layer of dust over books yet everything else polishes in glints of white lamp lights. A few stuffed animals inhabit soft blue covers of the left twin bed; among the animals of the zodiac, Soonyoung spots a pink hamster plushie. It's smaller than his hand, but he swears that its chubby cheeks are as big as his palm.

Seokmin excuses himself to grab some food outside, assures Soonyoung that he'll come back, and tells him it's okay to start settling down. He gestures at a wooden study under the window, the desk overlooking the dwindling stream of students coming out from afternoon classes. "You can take my desk," Seokmin offers right before he leaves.

But when Seokin closes the door on him, Soonyoung walks back up to the bookshelf and stares down at every single thing sitting inside. He thinks he's looking at remnants of something Seokmin treasured, almost as if opening up Seokmin without actually opening him up. There are small things he notices would usually be dangling at star-tipping prices in souvenir shops. A picture frame holds a shadow puppet of a tiger, Chinese characters inscribed on the thin cardboard box it stands on. A silver bear holding onto a blue globe in its paws, train of metal chain cascading right behind it.

Over the books and gifts, he spots a picture frame of Seokmin. A taller guy stands next to Seokmin with their yellow uniforms, and from Soonyoung's angle, he recognizes the name of a high school in Seoul. What punches Soonyoung straight at his guts is the guy's arm around Seokmin's shoulders, the bright smiles for the camera more blinding than the flash refracting off the rim of Seokmin's glasses. They smile so much that he notices that their eyes are smiling, too.

He stands there, and a weight moves into his chest like a new home.

 

Maybe Soonyoung shouldn't have been enjoying his time with Seokmin as much as he did. He always thought that there was someone else who Seokmin smiles the most with, but he hopes that he was wrong this whole time.

The car ride back to Soonyoung's apartment stills in silence, minus occasional karaoke sessions Seokmin has with the radio before he drives off the student parking lot. Hard rubber crushing shards of gravel never makes its way into Soonyoung's ears, not until Seokmin parks at his spot in the garage of his apartment building.

He closes the door on Seokmin, doesn't offer a goodnight this time.

\----

Pieces of Seokmin never make their way into Soonyoung's vision on the first day back to class for the winter quarter. In fact, he goes through his day without seeing the boy, and he doesn't know if it is better this way or not.

He sits in class as he twirls his pen and his professor crunches through the syllabus, pictures Seokmin grabbing his pen and using it to jot down important dates spitting out faster than the clock.

\----

He should be enjoying his last quarter as a university student, but why does his heart drag him into classrooms? He still sits down at the table with Wonwoo, Mingyu, Jihoon, Seungcheol, and all, but why does Seokmin's absence have to slap him so bad when he was never here for long? At least, not as long as the rest.

The afterburn of the slap stabs his heart deeper when Seungcheol asks him, "Hey, where's Seokmin?"

Soonyoung shakes his head. Not because he really has no clue. Not because it's been a while since he has spoken a syllable to Seokmin. Not because he misses Seokmin. "I don't know. Why don't you go find him?"

The harshness bites back and Seungcheol mumbles a, "Sorry, I just-"

"It's okay," he cuts him off. He sighs, stands up, and leaves. He robs a glance at Wonwoo's eyes following him, but he doesn't turn back.

At that moment, he knows why. Bad liars don't make it far.

 

He discovers himself in the dance studio like a subconscious pathway and instead of turning the speakers on, he tosses his bag against the mirror and lies down on the hardwood, eyes following the single light flickering above him. He stares at it and the thought of being unproductive like this hits him more solid than his backpack collapsing onto his feet. He crawls back to his bag and pulls out his notepad, props himself against the mirror, and starts taking notes of the team's input from the group chat.

The ache in his back suggests that he should probably sit down somewhere, maybe in one of those swivel chairs at the library, but he decides not to. The library houses more memories of Seokmin than actual books.

\----

He hasn't talked to his friends since then. He lies back down on the floor of the dance studio, eyes shut and earphones in to listen to the song that the club mentioned a couple of meetings ago. Black of his eyelids flash into a bright orange and his eyes open on instinct. He cranes his head up, ignores the strain at the base of his neck, looks around. He spots Wonwoo at the entrance, his hand hovering over the light switch.

"Why didn't I think of coming here to find you?" sings more on a happy note than anything else this past week.

Soonyoung shrugs. He falls back against the floor again and closes his eyes. Over piano keys hitting his ears, he hear shuffling of fabric, squeaks of sneakers into an echoing void, and he opens one eye to watch Wonwoo sit next to him on the floor.

"What?" flatlines from his lips.

"I saw Seokmin today," almost breathes lowly. The single name in that one sentence already has his heart at Wonwoo's mercy.

"Okay."

"I'll be honest with you," Wonwoo places a hand on Soonyoung's wrist, right over his chest. He notices that if it was anyone else holding him like this, he would have swatted it away. But it's Wonwoo. He likes the fragile hold Wonwoo has, "and he was with another guy."

Soonyoung isn't surprised. With someone as friendly and lovable as Seokmin, someone standing at the opposite end of the social spectrum, it shouldn't twist his heart so raw, it shouldn't stop his breathing this fast, it shouldn't sear tears at his eyes.

After a moment, he hears some more shuffling and tugs of his jacket lower into his arm. He opens his eyes once, registering Wonwoo lying down right next to him. "I liked him," Wonwoo admits, far too softly for the damage that the boy left. "Maybe not the way you did, but he was always nice to everyone. He was really nice to you." The next two words simmer thick. "What happened?"

Soonyoung shrugs again, a dry slide of his clothes on the floor. "I don't know." He really doesn't. "We just stopped talking."

"Well, graduation is coming soon," Wonwoo reminds him, and it should make him happy. It really should. But it doesn't. "Will you invite him?"

\----

He finds his way back to the table under the trees, offers an apology to Seungcheol over watermelon slices that the oldest bought and knifed up himself. Seungcheol takes it with a smile, apologizes for being so careless about something that Soonyoung cares deeply about. That if he sees Seokmin again, he would be glad to land a fist at the smile on his face for leaving the group, for leaving Soonyoung like this.

\----

He wonders why he can't push himself to do anything, to stumble a conversation into Seokmin's dorm or ask to wait for him at the parking lot just this one time before they part ways.

He's cleaning up his study at his apartment, stacks of notebooks and paper kicked under the table. He opens all the drawers and yanks out broken pens and graphite bits. He thinks about Seokmin's rainbow pens always juxtaposing his black and blue ones.

It never hits him that Seokmin never said anything to him after this quarter started. And he thinks the saddest thing isn't saying goodbye, but not saying it at all.

\----

Graduation steps into his periphery in whiplash. Gaping stares of his same-year friends when their eyes find the field tacked with rows of fold-up chairs. He finds the bleachers and wonders if Seokmin will be sitting there, too, but he shakes it off and knows that Seokmin probably has something better to do. Both of them never really said anything about breaking the friendship off, anyway; let it die without trying to save it.

 

Nighttime searches for the graduation ceremony at the end of it all, and his parents are the first ones he finds in the midst of everyone else still looking for theirs parents, siblings, friends, former professors. His heart floats weightless in the clouds but shoots straight out of the sky to be relieved from university, to know it means never seeing Seokmin again.

His parents swing their arms around each of Soonyoung's shoulders, and his sisters tag behind. He thinks he hears his father asking him where he wants to eat, where he wants to celebrate his commencement, but he doesn't have the heart to tell him that he's not hungry.

\----

Almost two years later, graduation fends him off at his own apartment in the middle of Seoul, veins of the city meeting up at the artery of dance studios. His steps follow his heart into a practice room, at the other side of the mirror, and in front of a class.

He thinks he's finally learning to let go of Seokmin, but winters pass and there's an empty chill at his cheeks of where Seokmin's scarf should be.

\----

His heart stumbles in sync with his steps for a boy named Junhui. An accent brought them to misinterpretations and blushing cheeks because there aren't many members of the dance studio who can speak conversational Mandarin. But when words fail, Junhui makes it up with actions. With sitting outside of the studio at one in the morning to wait for Soonyoung. Sometimes, he catches the older leaning against the wall and reading a book under front lights. Other times, he tilts his head to the angle of his phone as he watches the Chinese news reporter.

Soonyoung returns the actions by waiting for Junhui to finish before locking up the studio and standing so close that he almost swears he actually feels Junhui's flesh from under their sweatshirts.

He doesn't tell Junhui, though. He knows it from the first time that he shouldn't tell.

\----

His arms can never match the beat of the song and bass actually blares him a skull-splitting headache. He wants to sit down and take a quick breath, but the calendar he taped onto the mirror a week ago with the date two weeks from now stops him from doing so. Why can't it all go smoothly as he planned on his notebook? Why does the red light of the camera blind him?

The light goes out under his thumb, red of recording fading into pinks of his nail bed, and he doesn't realize the fist of his hand or the way he lifts his arm up and almost throws the camera back down. He almost doesn't realize the soft grip on his wrist that stops the camera from crashing onto the floor.

He stares up at Junhui's face and Junhui plucks the camera off his fingers. He sets the camera gently on the floor and tells Soonyoung that he should rest, that the perfect choreography can't be forced out like this. It can't be forced out when he looks like he'll start crying any minute. It can't be forced out when Soonyoung actually does.

Junhui's hand slips over his cheek and Soonyoung's fingers find the back of the older's neck, pulls him closer so that their lips fall into each other. Junhui steps forward and Soonyoung steps back, shivers at the cold mirror meeting his spine.

\----

It's not a surprise to Soonyoung that they don't last long. Junhui justifies it's because Soonyoung stays at the dance studio like a second home and his anger is starting to get worse at every single deadline. Junhui can't handle the stress manifesting in the form of bitter words at him, instead of targeting the choreographer himself. Junhui justifies it's because Soonyoung acts as if he owns the future of the dance studio, and he can't keep waiting for someone who stopped waiting for him a long time ago.

Soonyoung doesn't know exactly how to feel. A little numbness washes over him and the world shatters at the corners, but not quite altogether. He just nods, says once and only once, "Thank you for being there for me, anyway."

Junhui offers a small smile, a lingering brush of his fingers over his palm, "I'll still be here for you."

\----

A new name shows up at the dance studio a year later. Since then, Soonyong wonders when Junhui really does shut up.

His name is Minghao and sometimes, he sees Junhui and Minghao holding hands on their way into and out of the studio, through harsh nips of winter at their noses and hot slicks of skin when summer kicks in and kicks them even harder to the floor. He should be happy for them, but his mind diverts to holding Seokmin's hand and he drops it.

"What's wrong?" Chan's voice rings into his ears, but his mind is stuck at the very letters of the question. It takes a moment for his brain to process this one question, but maybe it's because a million answers sink into his mind. Maybe the one answer with all of the answers is still not enough.

Soonyoung shakes his head, mutters about, "Just forgot the camera in my car, I think," and offers to buy lunch for him during the break. A mere skip across the street, the youngest can pick any sweetness his heart desires.

\----

Ice melts into parts of the road and streetlights, but sunlight still breezes in with the wind a week before Christmas. After selling out their final performances for the year, Soonyoung heads into the nearby coffee shop alone to buy drinks for the entire dance studio. He plucks a few pastries into a basket, knowing that not many members will pick one up. The three cakes sitting in his car should suffice for their hungry stomachs, though.

The shop strips off from the morning rush, and Soonyoung checks the  _11:05_ on his phone. Past morning rush, not even during the hours the studio is open. He settles at a table near the window, somewhere that filters light in. Occasional chiming of the bell lifts Soonyoung's eyes and he bats his eyelashes before going back to his phone. He taps his foot along to the beat of the new song someone suggests on trying out and it almost has him singing along off-beat to the chill melodies resounding clinks of mugs and muffled whirring of milk frothers.

The bell rings once, pauses, and doesn't ring again. It rings when Soonyoung looks up, but his eyes never sink back to his phone. He freezes and wants to pound his fist into his chest to get his heart to start beating again. But the sweat forming a sheet in his hands leaves his palm on his lap.

Seokmin wears a smile, unfamiliar from the days they used to laugh together. Seokmin pushes round glasses with the knuckle of his index finger. His fringe is gelled away from his forehead and Soonyoung thinks that he can pass of as one of those idols he sees on television, of the singer serenading him through earphones. An overstuffed notebook rests on top of the blue laptop case in his grip.

Seokmin takes the seat across from Soonyoung and after a while, it finally hits him that Seokmin asked him how he has been.

Soonyoung swallows off the choke in his throat and starts off, "I work at a dance studio. I'm a choreographer."  _Just like what you told me before we stopped talking._ He offers the same question back, but awkwardness stemmed from distance in years and proximity of their knees sends a crack right into his voice.

"I've been great." He lifts the notebook from his lap to show loose papers trying to fit into the binding. The black Moleskine notebook at Seokmin's hands seems so far off from colorful spirals filling space in his backpack years ago. "Just a lot of patients this time around."

Soonyoung nods and reminds himself that Seokmin is a social worker. At least, from the last time he saw the younger, he worked his university years to become a social worker. "What are you watching?"

Soonyoung hesitates to point the screen at Seokmin, but he shows the dance studio, his class, his own body in front of his students. "We have our final performance of the year this week."

"Oh, can I have your number?" Seokmin asks without stutter. It throws him off. Why would he want to contact him when they dropped everything the year before Soonyoung graduated? He almost declines Seokmin, but there's a hope to rekindle the past. "You probably changed it since you graduated, anyway."

Seokmin hands him his phone and Soonyoung types in his information on empty lines, resorting to saving his name as  _Kwon Soonyoung_. After entering his number and name, a message pops up on the screen, asking him if he would like to rewrite a contact for  _Soonyoungie_. He looks up at Seokmin, wonders why he would keep his phone number this entire time if a word never passed between them for years.

Seokmin catches the screen and scratches the back of his neck. He glances down and it's the first time Soonyoung takes notice of the pink rising at his ears. "Yeah, I still kept your phone number." He pushes his glasses back up for the second time. "I hope that's okay."

 

**Author's Note:**

> the title of the fic is from ["Maybe" by Neocolours.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESwbDLRwEY0) it's a song from the philippines and i always heard it growing up :D  
> thank you, yusi, for correcting me on writing someone's name. for the last bit, where soonyoung is putting in his number, it was supposed to have star emojis around his name, but it doesn't show up and i'm sad. but oh well...i think you get it tho??  
> and for the ceramic mug, i remember looking up a store somewhere in korea that sells that but i don't remember :( if i do find it again, i'll link it back!  
> but thank you for reading and i hope you enjoyed it! :D  
> i'm on [tumblr,](http://seokmins-thighs.tumblr.com/) [twitter,](https://twitter.com/leescokmin) and [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/miniinfinity)


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